Return of the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman
After 10 years apart, Steve Austin and Jaime Sommers reunite to take on international terrorists, an estranged son, and their own romantic past. Debrief After ten years of little contact, Oscar Goldman seeks out a retired Steve Austin. He hopes to persuade him back into service for an OSI mission. A terrorist group calling itself Fortress has been on the move lately. This group feels that the American way of life is under siege. They want to stamp out those who they feel threaten their country, under the guise of patriotism. In reality, they are simply a paramilitary criminal organization looking to make their mark. But Austin doesn't want to get back into that kind of life, worrying about who's going to shoot him in the back next. Besides, he has something else on his mind these days: his son. Austin has a son named Michael Austin whom he abandoned, along with his mother, Karen a long time ago. Michael's mother died when he was six, and he went to live with Austin's sister-in-law. Later, Michael joined the Air Force: and will soon graduate from the Academy. Austin has decided he wants to become a part of Michael's life again, if he will have him. Austin tells Goldman about how he's decided to meet Michael at a restaurant on the pier, where his boat is docked. Austin now owns a boat named Summer Maiden — a reference to his former sweetheart Jaime Sommers — which he uses to do chartered trips and earn a living. Goldman then decides to play matchmaker with Austin and Sommers. He knows Austin still loves her, even though he won't admit it. Goldman makes sure Sommers is in the restaurant that night. When Austin arrives at the restaurant, Sommers is upset to see him. It turns out she received a concussion on her last mission for the OSI. When she woke up, Sommers remembered everything she had forgotten since the incident when she rejected her bionics — the day she almost died. So she remembers being in love with Austin, and can't handle the emotions right now. Not to mention she blames Austin for the death of Chris Williams — a fellow agent, and lover — on that last mission. Sommers ends up throwing Austin through the restaurant's front window, in anger. Just then Michael shows up, cracking a joke about "using the front door next time" at seeing his father lying amongst the broken glass shards. Just when Austin thinks things can't get any worse that night: he ends up upsetting Michael at the end of their conversation. Michael wants Austin to be there on his graduation day, when he does a solo flight in a fighter jet to prove his skill: but Austin isn't sure if he wants to come. Austin ends up kicking himself, figuratively, for totally screwing up the evening. Goldman talks to Sommers the next day, asking her to stop blaming Austin for Chris Williams' death, and to give him a chance. Goldman tells Sommers that Austin still loves her, and he is guilty enough for the both of them, for not helping Sommers and Williams in their time of need. Sommers decides to get to know Austin all over again, now. Meanwhile, Fortress has decided that one of their goals is to capture either Austin or Sommers in order to learn about bionics. They try to capture both of them, but fail. Austin ends up rescuing Sommers from being kidnapped, and they come to talk about their feelings. The two make up, and want to start a new relationship. Sommers finds out about Michael Austin, and decides to be at his graduation. When that day comes, Michael does his flight: as Austin, Sommers, and Goldman watch. Unfortunately, something goes horribly wrong with Michael's plane. It could be sabotage — Fortress seeking retribution against Austin. The leader of Fortress, Lyle Stenning, has a personal grudge against Steve Austin. It was Austin who put him behind bars ten years ago. But now that he has escaped from prison, Austin is enemy number one on his list. Michael Austin ejects from the crippled jet, but it's too late. He is severely wounded in the crash. Now Steve Austin is really upset and angry. He decides to make a deal with Goldman. If Goldman will do bionic surgery on Michael to save his life, Austin will deliver Fortress on a silver platter. Goldman agrees to Austin's request, and Dr. Rudy Wells is called in to operate. The surgery is successful, but Michael is certainly not ecstatic when he wakes up and finds out what they did to him. He tells Austin that "no matter what happens now, your son died in that plane crash". Sommers steps in, to help Michael deal with his recovery. She nurtures his mental stability back to normal, and eventually Michael comes to feel that the bionics are actually pretty "cool". This whole situation is great news to Fortress, once they find out. Now they want to grab the newest "bionic chip off the block". They can get their hands on the latest in bionic technology, and get back at Austin once again. Fortress proceeds to kidnap Michael, along with Rudy Wells. Once Austin finds out where Fortress' hideout is, he and Sommers beat a path to their door. With some help from Michael, who manages to escape, they clean up the entire operation. Goldman is proud of his new bionic creation, and wonders if Michael Austin would like to become an OSI agent. Steve Austin is not pleased to hear this, and tells Goldman to keep his hands off Michael. Trivia *Chuck Yeager is a fan of the bionic shows, and came up with the idea that Michael Austin should have a laser equipped in his bionic eye. *Yeager may have made a cameo appearance, as the voice of the tower controller at Maffin Air Base who converses with Michael Austin on his graduation day test flight. *Steve Austin's bionic eye sound effect, Jaime Sommers' bionic ear sound effect, and both of their jumping sound effects, have been updated for this movie. *Except for the "thud" sound when Michael Austin strikes someone with his bionic arm, all of his sound effects are also new. Particularly notable is his running sound effect, which starts off sounding like a jet plane taking off. *Michael's slow-motion effect when he runs is also updated, so that his motion is blurred and leaves temporary after-images as he moves. *Oscar Goldman begins the movie reciting a memo, stating that OSI stands for Office of Scientific '''Information. This contradicts both The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman series, which (most commonly) stated that '''OSI stood for Office of Scientific '''Intelligence. *Goldman also states that Santiago is only the codename of said character. We never learn the character's real name. *Chris Williams was killed on a mission with Jaime Sommers in Budapest, Hungary. Sommers states that she came back to work on a mission for the '''OSI after years of retirement. She and Chris became separated following an explosion at the American embassy, and she was knocked unconscious. Sommers suffered a concussion as a result. During her recovery, she discovers that she can suddenly remember every detail of her life. All of her lost memories have come back. Goldman adds that Williams was killed by a rifle bullet to the head, while being held captive in a cell. *It seems that art imitates life when it comes to the story of Steve Austin's secret past: which bears a curious resemblance to Lee Majors' real life circumstances, in certain ways. Majors divorced his first wife, and she moved away with their son Lee Majors II — just like Austin was apart from his son Michael. At the time of filming, Majors was married to Karen Velez — and in the movie, Austin states that his wife was named Karen. *Jim Castillian states that he is an orphan. This also appears to be a reference to Lee Majors' real life. Majors was orphaned as a child, his parents both died in accidents. *Austin states that his wife Karen died of pneumonia in a small town named Placidville. Michael was six years old at the time of her death, and Austin sent him away to live with Karen's sister Mary. Austin married Karen "right out of college", divorced her almost immediately, and he then entered the U.S. Air Force. *Michael didn't take an interest in his father until he was 14. Even then, they only wrote letters to each other. After that, they had little contact; Austin and Michael have never actually met again, since the time Michael's mother died. *Austin talks about the "M3-F5", the experimental lifting body vehicle in which he crashed. In The Six Million Dollar Man episode The Deadly Replay, it was referred to as the "HL-10". *Michael is 23 years old, and has reached the rank of Second Lieutenant in the Air Force. *Oscar Goldman states that he's left Jaime Sommers alone since the National Security '''Board' tried to arrest her, as seen in ''The Bionic Woman finale: On the Run. The explanation of the acronym contradicts the show, in which it stood for National Security '''Bureau. *The '''OSI regional office located in California — the location in which the film takes place, and it specifically appears to be Los Angeles as evidenced by certain signage — is operating under the false identity of "Motor Cars Unlimited" as a cover. *When asked how much his bionics are worth at this point, Austin responds the he belives they would be worth $24 million if inflation was taken into account. *Michael's bionic limbs have three times as many components as Austin's, and a microchip implanted in Michael's chest helps coordinate the bionic systems. *A PA in the hospital where Michael undergoes surgery, pages a Dr. Joyce. This is a reference to the Producer of the movie, Bernadette Joyce. *Gary Lockwood appeared in The Six Million Dollar Man episodes Eyewitness to Murder and Steve Austin, Fugitive, and The Bionic Woman episode The Night Demon. *Terry Kiser appeared in The Six Million Dollar Man episode Love Song for Tanya and The Bionic Woman episode Mirror Image. Nitpicks *During the opening credits, we see wire-frame representations of bionic limbs and other components. One of these representations demonstrates a left arm. But none of the bionic characters — Steve Austin, Jaime Sommers, or Michael Austin — have a left bionic arm. *After Steve Austin has spoken with General Forest and leaves Maffin Air Force Base, we see that Santiago is tailing Austin. During the close-up of Santiago in the passenger seat of the car, he says "follow him" to his fellow henchman. The problem is, his lip movements clearly don't match what's said. *When one of Stenning's henchmen fires a grenade at Austin's car, during the car chase where they try to capture him: you can tell when the henchman leans out of the passenger window, that the car and background aren't moving. *When the grenade impacts Austin's car, it shatters the front windshield but part of the glass is still in the frame. Later however, the remaining glass suddenly disappears. *When Jaime Sommers goes for a run in a park by herself, she runs at bionic speed. Oscar Goldman is there to greet her, at the end of her sprint. Goldman timed the run, and states that she ran a mile in 30 seconds. Unless Goldman is being facetious, this would mean Sommers was running at a speed of 120 miles per hour. This contradicts the top running speeds established for Steve Austin and Sommers in The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman series. Both indicated that Austin's and Sommers' top speed is in the 60 miles per hour range. A specific example is Burning Bright, where we can see a readout of 66 miles per hour on a treadmill indicator as Austin runs on it. *After her run, Sommers is exhausted. This makes no sense. Her bionic legs are doing all the work of running. She never became visibly tired from running in The Bionic Woman series. The fact that she is older now, should not make a difference. *Dr. Rudy Wells is shown fiddling with a remote control in his lab. Why do we hear distinct button punching sound effects like typing on a computer keyboard, when the buttons on Rudy's remote are membrane switches? They would not sound like that, when pressed. *There is a scene where Steve Austin leaps on top of a building, over three stories high. A "story" is defined as being approximately 12 feet in measure. In the episode The Last of the Fourth of Julys, it is established that Austin — and by extension, Jaime Sommers — have difficulty jumping higher than 30 feet. Therefore, Austin should not have been able to make the jump. *Afterward, when Austin leaps off the building and lands on the car Lyle Stenning's henchmen are in with the kidnapped Jaime Sommers — when Austin drops, he turns to his side as he falls. This would mean he should hit the car with the side of his body. But when he lands on top of the car, he is upright. *Before Sommers kicks out the car door, it's clear that the door has already been removed from its hinges. *You can tell that a stuntwoman kicks out the door, and not Lindsay Wagner. *When Austin rolls over the car: not only does the roll look completely unrealistic in the way it moves, but you can see a cable at the right side of the camera frame attached to the rear of the car. Also, the way the roof of the car is crushed should have badly injured Stenning's henchmen, yet they are fine and manage to drive off in the severely damaged car. *In the bar scene when the waitress Meghan says "I was friendlier to you, leave me alone" to Tom Brubaker, it's very apparent that her line is dubbed. Her lip movements don't match what is said. *During the bar fight, you can tell Jerry Dreyfuss (one of Michael's fellow Air Force graduates) pulls his punch, and did not close his fist, when he punches another bar patron. *In the scene where Lyle Stenning's henchmen try to run down Austin and Michael using a car, Austin grabs Michael by the arm and does a bionic leap. (Michael is not bionic yet, at this point in the story.) The leap carries him to safety on a high wall. But the problem with this, is that Austin's leap would realistically have torn Michael's arm out of its socket. *At the beginning of the scene where Michael is about to go on his graduation test flight, Austin is talking to Oscar Goldman about the night before. About how Stenning's men tried to run them both down, and Austin was forced to lift Michael to safety by using a bionic jump. Goldman wants to know how Austin explained he was able to make the jump. Lee Majors flubs his line a bit here, saying he gave Michael "the general ideal". *Rudy Wells states that Michael's bionics feature "atomic power chips" and "bionic capillaries". Without further explanation, these terms are completely nonsensical. *In a scene where Michael is running on a treadmill, the speed indicator shows at one point that he can run at least 289 miles per hour — and the indicator was still rising before the camera cuts away. This implies he can run about 300 miles per hour at top speed, which is simply not realistic at all. The energy required to be generated in his legs, and the stresses involved, would be absurdly high. The wind resistance when Michael runs at that speed would also be intolerable, not to mention it would slow him down. *After Michael and Jaime Sommers race, and she tells him "Leave me alone you little brat!" in jest and hits him: when Michael bends over, you can see a rectangular outline under his training vest. This would appear to be a transmitter for a wireless microphone, used by actor Tom Schanley. *When Lyle Stenning's men attempt to kidnap Michael Austin, Michael resists at first. He then uses his left arm to push away one of the men, and we hear a bionic "thud" sound effect. The problem is, Michael's left arm is not bionic. *After being captured, when Stenning warns Michael not to try and escape: you can see a boom microphone in the upper-right corner of the frame. *When Jaime jumps through the window to rescue Rudy Wells from capture, you can tell it's a stuntwoman. On top of that, you notice that she loses her balance when she lands, after the jump. Just as she's about to fall, the camera cuts to the next scene. *When Steve leaps down and knocks over a couple of henchmen about to kill Michael, you can tell it's a stuntman doing the leap. *As Michael is about to free himself from being in handcuffs, he knocks over one of Stenning's men using bionic strength. But he uses his left arm to do it — which again, is not bionic. (In theory, it could be argued that he shoved Stenning's henchman by using his bionic legs, and directing that force through his body to his non-bionic arm. However, this doesn't seem very plausible.) *Even worse, when Michael knocks over this henchman with his left arm: it's clearly visible that he's actually not in handcuffs. Yet in the next scene, the handcuffs return and Michael uses the laser in his bionic eye to burn through the chain of the cuffs. *Wouldn't Brubaker and the other Air Force grads helping to ambush Stenning's men, wonder why Michael appears to be completely okay after his plane crash? Scenes Deleted in Repeat Broadcasts *When Oscar Goldman cons one of his agents, Martin, into taking Jaime Sommers on a date to the Schooner restaurant so she will bump into Steve Austin — there are a couple of scenes immediately after this that were cut from repeat broadcasts of the movie. **Goldman and Steve Austin are on Austin's boat, and Goldman is giving Austin a pep-talk to help him prepare for meeting his son Michael. **Right after that, there is a scene where Michael is going through the same routine. His fellow Air Force graduates try to cheer him up and prepare him for his meeting with his father. Category:Six Million Dollar Man movies Category:Bionic Woman movies